Suggested AA and Combat/Buff Spell loads for Heroic toons

I have 10 level 100 toons and they keep me busy so I don't worry about the Heroic level 85 toons for myself BUT I have been hearing one major thing from people upgrading to Heroic 85 toons and that is that they are lost in regards to setting up their toon. Yes we can argue all day about how people need to start from level 1 to learn their toon but lets put that aside for now.

It would be nice to see a resource either SOE or player made that gives these new level 85 suggested loadouts as to AA hotkey ablilities and spell loads. This is only going to help EQ as a whole if these players are able to get a grip on their level 85 toons and continue playing EQ. Just a thought.

I for one would love this. I made three heroic toons. First a wizard (have played a wizard to 47 way back in the day) then an enchanter (have a 66 enchanter) and finally a cleric (have a 53 cleric)

While I have some basic experience with all three classes I was completely overwhelmed by the heroic toons. The wizard especially has so many spells/AA clicks that my mind almost exploded trying to figure out what the heck spells/abilities I should be using. There is absolutely no way that a new player could figure this out.

A guide for each class would be amazing. Just a basic write up describing what spells to mem for a main spell set and which to make for a buff set (conjuring set, etc) Then possibly describe some basic spell rotations for different situations.

The spellbook in game is horrendously organized. The few spells they have you mem to start with don't even remotely paint an accurate picture of what you should be using and the spellbook is completely randomized. Couldn't they at least have set it up in order by level? Apparently not.

The AA abilities.. thats a whole different can of worms. Anything to help in this would be immensely appreciated. At this point I feel the only way to make use of heroic toons would be to level up my lower characters to 85 first, then use the heroics or upgrade them to heroic just to get the free gear and AA's. At least then i'd only have to deal with learning the AA abilities.

I have to agree. I created a Heroic Monk a few days ago and the number of disciplines and AAs is rather overwhelming even though I played a Monk to max level (65) back in the day. Some of the "new" abilities are simply improved versions of what I had at 65, but there are many new abilities and their synergy is not obvious. This Monkly-Business guide is useful, but it still assumes that the reader is familiar with the class.

I'm starting a Wizard tomorrow and fully expect to be sitting in POK all weekend and arranging my spell book. What would help more than anything would be an index that listed the spells into different categories, fire dd, cold dd, etc. Perhaps a level 85 can make a quick list of the 10-15 spells they use the most often, just a starting point. Any help would be appreciated.

I am not sure if you realize that you can right-click on an empty spell gem to get a list of all of your spells organized by category?

well I can tell you as a level 100 warrior I may be wrong on this but at level 85 I was using, disarm, bash, taunt, gut punch, knee strike, bazu bluster, fortitude, final stand, armor of timeworn runes, sub kick for bash, to keep skill maxed, call of challenge, filed armorer, champions aura, commanding voice, brutal onslaught, mighty strike, I think 4th wind, may have been 5th not sure. I think punch through, at least for warrior at 85 thats what I remember using but thats been so long ago I cant really remember everything but thats about as close as I can remember.

Quick wizzy basics, off the top of my head

concussion (do not remove long recast/mem time)
Harvest (do not remove long recast/mem time)
twincast (do not remove long recast/mem time)
snare
Ethereal fire for burn
ethereal ice for burn
claw of (fire)
Medium fire nuke for sustained
Medium ice nuke for sustained
Flashfires (not sure if it is blaze cant remember name) Instant fire nuke for finishing off mob.

Most if not all the other spells can be ignored. You have runes and shielding which are useful to keep on yourself. You also have root.

You should have exodus as an AA use that for your evac and AA for your flappy instead of the spell. Not sure what other AAs were available at level 85.

Actually, they already provide a hotbar loadout with discs/AAs for heroic characters. When you create it a pop up box will come up asking if you want your hotbar to be replaced with their premade template, select yes, voila.

Now understanding what all those abilities do is a whole 'nother can of worms. Unfortunately for SOE to make a writeup for every class would take an enormous amount of time...some community members might be generous enough to take up that offer but who knows.

(some random tips because I'm too tired to organize!)

For now, just judge what you should be using based on: mana/endurance cost, cast time, duration, cooldown. For example, a caster nuke might look really bad if it does 1/4 the damage of another available nuke, but if it had 1/4 the cast time, 1/4 the mana, and no cooldown it would actually be better (more casts, more procs/crits, less time locked into a single spellcast). Just remember to actually READ the entire spell, some of them can have detrimental effects (Hail Wizzies!). Also, smaller nukes can be used as finishers to preserve mana. AAs don't display cast times and spells don't display cooldowns without using them, so go wild: most likely, all of your cooldowns will be back up before you've finished set up. Very FEW AAs cost mana btw (Fading Memories comes to mind). Worst case scenario you kill yourself (Act of Valor) but that only happens to unicorn lovers and mod rod junkies~

Keep in mind that some discs share timers. I suggest opening your combat abilities window (alt+c?), press S, then click "Timer" so your discs are all filtered by timer. Look for the highest level abilities on the same timer, there will sometimes be a couple around the same level.

As an example, I was trying to learn my warrior and didn't realize that Maelstrom Blade (aoe) shared a timer with something else (single target) I was using (I think Jeer?) so I was doing pretty poorly at holding AOE aggro. I've gotten pretty used to my SK and his plethora of AOE jolts so it's going to take some practice...Scorpion poisons help a lot though. I have a lot to learn, but learning is the best part to me~ (And appreciate the tips Revulsion! I was missing 4 of the abilities you listed from my hotbar)

Obviously it's all a lot of work to learn your character from nothing, but some common sense + Google will get it done a lot faster for you than trying to get the 85 levels yourself. Once you have an idea of how your abilities work, start color-coding! Instead of using AAs/discs grabbed directly through the UI make your own buttons. Right click on a hotbar, Assign Social, choose an empty macro and get to work. Each AA will list its Alt Activate code, so all you need to write to recreate your hotbutton is /alt activate 123 where 123 corresponds to your ability; or /disc XYZ where XYZ corresponds to the name of the discipline (ie /disc Shadewalker's Syngery Rk. II --never made a hotbutton for a disc so not sure on that format but that's what google tells me). Once it's made, you can title the button to anything you want and assign a color for it (to the right of its title bar). This is especially useful for spires, I have one of every class so it gets really annoying to try to remember what each class's "First Spire, Second Spire, Third Spire" does. I renamed them to (Bard for example) Tanky Spire, Spell Spire, Melee Spire. (This part may get confusing) With the last patch you can now use # to prevent the macro from running a line, this is especially great for writing comments about what a macro does.

Edit: You will want to utilize the /timer command on the second line for any macros you make to mimic an AA/disc with a moderately long cooldown. '10' is about 1 second, so /timer 6000 imitates 10 minutes. I honestly only colorcode the AAs that aren't life-or-death because /timer bugs out while you're zoning or if you try to use the ability again it will reset the timer (not the cooldown though). In my Druid's case this is what I do to my Spirit of Black/White Wolf AAs but also because I wanted them to be a macro anyway so I could make myself dismount before casting it.

NOTE: Avoid making macros with /pause lines whenever possible. Instead, research 'multibinding'. /pause lines will lock you into a pause and require intervention to cancel the pause (I have 'stop' assigned to X, but that still requires the half-second of response time to cancel the macro, and as a healer that can get the group killed). The downside of multibinding is that it still requires keymashing which isn't feasible for a boxer keeping attention to 3 or more accounts.

One more freebie...
/pause 1,/alt activate <Forceful Rejuvenation>
/cast <Emergency Spell>
Forceful Rejuvenation takes most of your abilities (not all) off cooldown. You'll have to experiment to see if it works with what you have in mind.

Just my observations from trying to set up 3 classes I've never played before in a single hour so I'd have time to play with a friend who is returning. Hope someone finds my rambling useful!

I'm still getting my monk's DPS rotation right so I might not have this 100% correct...but here's what I can tell you to help at 85 (and keep in mind that I don't raid):
Flying Kick and Tiger Claw are on separate timers now, so you'll want to use both. Most people just multibind FK and Tiger's Claw. You can keep dragon punch/tail rake hotkeyed somewhere to combo with the Dragon Punch AA for knockback, but it's not really a DPS option. It's just a "I need to move stuff" option, and that AA is on a 10 minute cd. Moving Mountains/Grappling Strike will mostly negate the need for that.
---Make a hotkey for /stopdisc. Monks are endurance chugging machines, you should not be running a discipline if you're not using it.
0- This is just an aura slot, keep Master's Aura up whenever possible.
1- Impenetrable is an amazing disc, you will always want a button for this and Whirlwind. Whirlwind makes you take 0 melee damage from front (you riposte everything) but Impenetrable can block spells + melee.
2- Crystalpalm is an all skills damage mod, meaning it's great with haste/overhaste/hundred hands
3- Scaledfist Increases special attacks, later you'll get Ironfist, but it's only real use is to make Crane Stance (which you'll get at 93) hit harder--other than that, it's on the low end of your DPS totem pole
4- Hotkey Moment of Placidity + Dreamwalk. Moment (later called 'XX Breaths') will burst restore endurance, Dreamwalk just makes you run faster (I use it in PoK all the time since it never expires there)
5- Heel is your best DPS line, it lets you use flying kick more (read: reduces the cooldown) just make sure you're keeping up Calanin's Synergy and mashing FK to get the use out of it.
6- Counterforce has a chance to slow things that are hitting you. If you are being hit and need a defensive cooldown, Counterforce is the last thing you want hogging your disc space. Echo of Distraction on the other hand will be your pulling tool, it's a short AOE mez that can only be used outside of combat (think of it as an instant cast pacify-and-grab). When you use it mobs will stay on your extended target for a few seconds, don't freak, when the mez fades so will their aggro with you.
7- Defer Death - Defensive cooldown that lets you take more punishment in the purple before you actually die, and makes you regen rapidly. I believe it has a shorter cooldown than impen/whirlwind.
8- Calanin's Synergy hits pretty hard and leaves a debuff that makes Flying Kick hit harder, use this and ignore XX-Step Pattern
9- Flinch: Another Defensive cooldown. Don't use it unless the thing that's hitting you is going to die in 12 seconds, or else you're going to start taking more damage. Phantom Apparition - Single Target Mez, sometimes this can be more reliable than Echo so keep both up (Yes they are on different timers but require you to be out of combat).
10- Speed Focus = Hundred Hands Effect, which (to put it very simply) is a haste that stacks with all haste except other HH effects. I like to use this with Infusion of Thunder (An AA similar to crystalpalm in that it increases all skills)
11- Punch Through is meh. It shares a cooldown with your defensive disc and doesn't add enough damage to be worth the endurance. Use it only if you're outpacing your group in terms of resources (your group goes oom before you go ooe). On the other hand, you'll get Void/Veiled Body later which is your longest defensive disc (10 minutes!). Obviously this blocks you from doing more DPS, but if you're tanking things you can barely keep up with more DPS = more ripostes = more damage to you (also, tank with a 2hander--Staff Block is an amazing AA). But keep its reuse timer in mind and the fact that you have other better, but shorter defensive options (Impenetrable/whirlwind/defer death).
12- 4th wind: Restores Endurance over time. At 86 you'll get Respite which can only be used while under 20% endurance, has a short cooldown and regenerates endurance more rapidly, but caps your endurance gain at 20% and puts 4th wind on cooldown.
13- Crane Stance at 93 - Two flying kick bombs. Always use with ironfist and after synergy for maximum damage. It is the highest/fastest burst tool you will ever get.

14- Vigorous Shuriken is your pulling tool if you don't have real shurikens, but you will get Distant Strike later to replace it. If you are pulling with VS, you can't use Drunken Monkey Style which is something you should be keeping up to maximize DPS (if you need to sustain end which you probably will, try to only pop it before discs)
15- You get these later, but Tiger's Balance synergizes with Two-Finger Wasp Touch for better dps than Eagle's Balance (or so I hear)...otherwise Eagle's Balance is better DPS on its own
16- This timer is a little out of date, we have a 3rd ability on here too: Phantom Partisan, which is an upgrade to Cloud of Fists. I'm not sure where Zalikor's Fang fits in here, but I heard Partisan is better due to shorter reuse...
17- More defensives you get later. Shaded Step increases your dodge chance massively for 18 seconds, Swift Reflexes on the other hand blocks several attacks. Not really sure on the discrepancy, I would guess Swift Reflexes is better for raiding. Eye of the Storm (skills modifier) is a long duration DPS cooldown sharing a timer with defensives, but you can keep it up quite often. Still, use with discretion.
18- Both of these are just Zomm eyeballs you can explore with safely.
Zan Fi's Whistle (can't remember what level you get this but it's an AA)- Another skills modifier, but this lasts long enough that you don't really need to worry about stacking issues, just use it when it comes up
Infusion of Thunder Longer reuse skills modifier + proc, keep stacking issues in mind


This thread is the best I've found regarding stacking issues: http://www.monkly-business.net/forums/showthread.php?t=38213
Found this one too while researching that might be helpful to you: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/monk-questions.201100/

There is a lot of information out for monks and for pretty much any class, you just have to look for it. Searching these forums and class-specific forums is a good way to go, just keep dates in mind--Monks in particular have received huge upgrades and changed up their DPS rotations in the past year.

I probably haven't helped much with the 'overwhelming' department, monks have a lot going on because they are a versatile class (good survivability, great puller, great dps). If you want a simple tip, just stick with Heel+Synergy+Flying Kick and figure out the rest as you go.

Wow! Thanks, Pirouette, much appreciated!

Thank you very much everyone this is some great info so far. Yinla thank you for the semi-specific wizard info that will get me started for sure. I also have a cleric and enchanter, anyone have some tips for those two?

I hope people continue to post good stuff in this thread. I believe many people would benefit from this wisdom for their new level 85 characters. I, for one, refuse to join a group let alone a raid until I know exactly how to play these characters. I would never want to ruin other people's day by not playing correctly.

Warrior Level 85 Loadout for AA's and Combat Skills

well I can tell you as a level 100 warrior I may be wrong on this but at level 85 I was using:

Alt+M
disarm
bash
taunt
sub kick for bash to keep skill maxed

AA's
gut punch
knee strike
call of challenge

Combat Skills
bazu bluster
fortitude
final stand
armor of timeworn runes
filed armorer
champions aura
commanding voice
brutal onslaught
mighty strike
I think 4th wind, may have been 5th not sure
I think punch through, at least for warrior at 85 thats what I remember using
but thats been so long ago I cant really remember everything but thats about as close as I can remember.

Great thread. Does anyone have suggestions for a heroic druid? I'm totally lost with what I should have this toon doing in a 3 box. I only need 1 healer merc so unless its a named I don't even have to heal.

Chanter Spells and AA Video.

hey dandin thanks for the loadouts man great vid keep them coming

Enchanter Self buff Loadout

I'm working on one tomorrow (Sun) for a heroic cleric and will be adding it to www.eqclerics.org. I already started some other lower level spell sets needed, but will make sure I cover heroic level as well.

I got a buddy of mine who helped me learn my enchanter he is a level 100 enchanter little different loadouts but I think I like this loadout better thanks man great vid

Yes, very nice, thanks!

Ranger:
Oceangreen Aquifer
Burynai Balm
Summer's Mist
Windwhip Bite
Focused Storm of Arrows
Swarm of Bees
Vinelash Cascade
Heartshear
Flusterbolt
Catrclysm Ash
Drifting Mist
Nature's Entropy